LONDON TOPICS

Evening Star, Issue 19891, 13 June 1928, Page 9

LONDON TOPICS

THE ROYAL OAK SENSATION [.From Gnu Correspondent.] April 12. The 11 oval Oak cate is still being eagerly discussed by Army and Air Force as well as Navy people. One point seems practically agreed between them all. So widespread a sensation was never before caused by such an apparently trivial affair of more personal antipathy. How it was ever allowed to reach the stage of inevitable publicity pussies most service men and infuriates all Navy men, and they argue that on the known facts it must connote a sad lack of tactful control somewhere. This is so obvious that there is a general impression of something more behind the scenes which was not disclosed at the courts martial. Apparently the strained relations aboard the Royal Oak were some time before they reached the outside world common talk between decks at Malta. To some service philosophers the peculiar details of the affair, with its jazz band and dance episode, rather suggest another equation in the background. INDUSTRIAL LOCARNOS.

Mr Robert Boothby, Parliamentary P.rivate Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and M.P. for Fast Aberdeenshire, is paying another visit to Germany in connection with the scheme he brought before the House of Commons some time ago for a Locarno pact between the coal industries of the two countries. Mr Boothby may not 1m able to bring back to Westminster any very encouraging news, but be may bo able to tell the House, should an early opportunity arise, about the increased amount of interest which Germany is taking in the subject since it was last mentioned in Parliament. In tho Essen district, as in many parts of Britain, the coal owners arc also the steelmastcrs. and the subject of a similar Locarno in regard to steel cannot fail to he mentioned during his visit. It has to bo remembered, however, that we refused to go into the Continental cartel for very good reasons. although frequently pressed by Germany to do so. Therefore, whatever slender hope there may ho in regard to a coal arrangement, there seems to he absolutely no prospect, of any similar agreement in Ibc matter of iron and steel. TELEGRAPH ENGINEERS’ TOUR. I believe that the forthcoming visit of leading telegraph experts to the United States is not merely a sequel to the report of the Hardman Lever Committee’s report. It is the practice of the telegraph departments on the two sides of the Atlantic at intervals of a few years, for the rivalry in which the, two engage is friendly, and each is ready to show the other its latest devices. The Americans, I am told, are a long way ahead of the rest of the world in the transmission of pictures; they have been working the system commercially for some time. Tho last visit of the British engineers was about seven years ago. The current negotiations between the cable corncompanies and tho Marconi Company arc being closely watched by the British Government, with some highly expert assistance, to see that the public interest is not prejudiced. CHAIR. OF FRUSTRATION.

The fact has been recalled that the late Lord Cave’s big disappointment in life was in not getting the Speakership of the House of Commons when Air Lowther was appointed in 1920. It is curious how many really distinguished parliamentarians have nursed a similar ambition to become Mr •Speaker, and Second Commoner of the Realm, though future events showed that to realise it would have sidetracked a great career. The Speaker holds a position of high dignity and authority, but he is more or less a silent onlooker at events, and his ultimate bourne is total eclipse with a peerage, in the Upper House. Yet both Lord Oxford and Sir Henry Camp-, hell-Bannerman at one time aspired to no more than the Speakership, though each was destined to become IVimr Minister and First Commoner, and to make more or loss big history. Clave's qualities peculiarly fitted him for the Chair : hut. Mr l.owlher’s appointment followed tradition, ho having been for years Chairman of Committee. His unsuspected gift of genial satire made him the most qnietly-for-midahle Speaker nf our time. And Lord. Cave’s disappointment was solaced two years later by an utterly unexpected advancement, to the Woolsack, when Lord Birkenhead quitted it on the overthrow of the Coalition. ARMY COMMISSIONS.

The half-yearly exnminutions for admission to the two great military schools will shortly decide (he fate of large numbers of nsjiirant.s to Army commissions. In all nearly dOO cadetships will he open to competition, ‘2OO being allotted to Sandhurst, and about eighty to Woolwich. Those candidates entering the latter—the, Royal Militarv Academy—will graduate for the Lnpincers, the Artillery, and Corps of Signals, while Ihe Royal Military College will enter for all other branches of the service and for the Indian Army. Tn addition to the foregoing numbers, about twenty Sandhurst cadetships will ho granted to “ rankers.” Since that privilege was extended, comparatively recently, to non-commissioned officers and rank and file of the Army, those selected have done remarkably well, many passing out among the highest on the li-ds. The possibility of selection to the college has been responsible lor numbers of poor men. with public school and university educations, enlisting as private soldiers as the most economical method of obtaining a commission. MILITARY FULL DRIVES.

One cannot- help admiring the pertinacity of flic advocates of full dresfor the Army. Without respite they pursue their forlorn hope, undaunted either by the large expenditure which reversion to pie-war uniforms would involve, or by the War Department’s repeated cold refusals turning their proposals down. ft is hardly feasible that, during the present, economy campaign. and when important developments in mechanisation, and. to a large extent rearming. require to ho financed, another million and u-quartcr should he added to the military tailors' hill, plus incurring the large annual expense of upkeep. One of the stock arguments in ‘incur of -reintroducing lull cr- -s is the stimulating effect- it would have on recruiting. But that view is not supported by experience. For a considerable period alter the Guards were given hack their bearskins and scarlet tunics there were actually fewer recruits than when the brigade was clothed in khaki. MIRROR SUPERSTITION. Among the baser' superstitions that, die hard is the one about seven years’ bad lurk following tire breaking of a mirror. The other day I heard this quaintly, and rather grimly, discussed in a West End club. One member mentioned, apropos des holies, that recently a mirror at home bad fallen down and been badly broken, and he was just sufficiently superstitious, being a stockbroker, to wonder whether there was “anything in” the familiar sinister theory. “ Don’t know what to think about it,” ejaculated one listener. “ The last experience I had of a smashed mirror was over in France in M 7.” The stockbroker was interested in details, and was told that, while one man was' shaving outside a frontline. dug-out, a Gorman miiion-werfer roared across, bursting close to him on the parapet. “What liap|>ened?” asked the anxious member. “Glass blown to smithereens,” replied the ex-

officer. “ And did tho man get seven years’ bad luck?” pursued the other. “ Can’t say. Never had a chance to tell. He went the same way as the mirror!” HIS OLD PACK. Two impressive facts were brought home to me by a futile attempt to discover a little Easter peace and solitude on a footpath stroll to Friday street. This year there is to be a coincident bigger boom than ever in motoring and walking, too. Not so long ago Friday street, most picturesque and sequestered of Surrey hamlets, remained almost as it was in Norman days. I found it crowded out by an amazing array of secondhand ears and brand-new rucksacks. At the ancient inn, named after a medieval archbishop, they told me that they had served over tiOO lens that day. I noticed that all the walkers, maidens in jazz woolly stockings as well as youth* in plus fours, carried alpenstocks. It seems that this is now done. But my tramp was not unrewarded by epic spectacle. Swinging down one glade through the Leith Hill pine woods I saw a lonely figure. It was a middleaged man with an old army pack on his back, the empty right log of his trousers pinned up to his hip, crutrhing along to the silent rhythm of ‘ Tipperary.’ POCKETLESS JACKETS. 1 gather that the latest craze of welldressed youths is to have their jacket a made without outside pockets. The reason 1 am unable to guess, unless it bo that the slim line is as much desired by tbeir sex as by the other. The arrangement seems to have ©very other reason against it. Where, tor instance, do they carry their pipe and tobacco pouch P Hut perhaps they limit themselves to cigarettes, in the thinnest of eases. The appearance of the new garments is not pleasing to oldfashioned tastes. The up-to-date young man may fake to the use of a reticule like bis sisters. LITERARY PREFERENCES. Mr George Moore, the novelist whose 1 Harold ’ is now being played at the Court Theatre, and who has just made such a sweeping critieism of hfs literary contemporaries, is the son of a former Irish M.P. He has, like Mr Noel Coward, an address in Ebury street, most reticent and aloof of West End thoroughfares. Mr Moore’s tirade, including the startling statement that Thomas Hardy could not write two sentences of decent English, has been received sub silentio, which was perhaps the better way, but our distinguished literary highbrows had their revenge ihe night that ‘Harold’ and .Miss Anita Loos’s ‘ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes ’ wore first performed. With one accord they crowded to the latter function, and were rewarded by a deluge of American conversational “crisps.” London will soon bo able to talk quite good American.